Boxer Defying The Odds

[dar1stheory]

Hey everyone,

This would have been my first post had I not succumbed to the urge to have chuckle and give an opinion in another on the way here!

Firstly, thanks to all of you who've taken the time to document some really fantastic advice and experiences about your pets and their training, it's given me a great start with our new boxer pup!

It's our first dog, (Fiance and I) though both of us grew up with family dogs spending plenty of time with them as they grew up with us, but this is the first time we've been in the position to have sole responsibility for a mammal, (I like my snakes too... though not very responsive to clicker training!)

Anyway, I'm hell bent on having the smartest boxer, Lea's parents have a 6 year old who is still a huge pup, but can do about 6 "tricks" on command, sit, shake, lay down, beg, back flop, and "ugly" (big grin showing off his bottom canines) But he is very easily distracted, and usually just flat out goes through all of them at once knowing it's dinner time!

Some laughed at me when I said I wanted to spend time training our new boxer pup, reminding me that "boxers aren't smart"...

4 weeks later, I think our 12 week old pup is set to prove some people wrong! We are both really busy, and don't get to spend a huge amount of time with our little man, but he's responded so well to clicker training, only started about 10 days ago, but he's now sitting perfectly, comes on command, shakes (with the right paw for good etiquette), and last night, figured out go to bed in only 2 requests!

I'd like some feedback though, how much is too much, as in, should I just try and cement 1 trick before moving to the next, I've been combining 2-3 to keep things interesting with him, and it seems to be working fine, but anyone think its too early to move to 5-6 things? Or would it be good to keep him thinking hard and changing up the routine more so that he doesn't develop the trend of "Uncle Popeye" just going through everything he knows to get the reward in the same sequence every time?

And I'd love some idea's from people for what I should try next, and how to go about it... (I totally want to achieve the "clean up" command to put all his toys away in the long term, anyone else got a boxer doing this or similar?)

Thanks everyone!

[boxagirl]

Great to hear you're training your Boxer, Boxers ARE smart... too smart sometimes

is a video of my Boxer doing obedience. At the age of 12 weeks she could heel, sit, drop, stay, shake paw and knew food refusal. However, I'd advise you against overtraining your pup at a young age, as it burns them out. Focus on socialisation and the basics. I reccommed you "cement"/proof your pup to know each command under distraction, in all dif. places, before moving onto the next command.

Join us in the Boxer thread in Breed sub-forums (in general dog discussion)